“Continuing downhill from the Pantepoptes, we turn left into Sebnem Sok. and, after 100m or so, right into Karadeniz Cad. which joins Karasarıklı Sok. within about 200m of the Golden Horn. A road to the left soon after brings us to the church of St. Theodosia – or Gül Camii, the rose mosque. A heavily restored structure, built on a slope, more like a prison than a church, but a prison with three apses and some beautiful Byzantine brickwork on the exterior, especially on the corbels of the two side apses. It also has a handsome minaret dating from the 17th C. when the building was converted into a mosque… Theodosia was a Constantinopolitan nun with the talents of a gang-leader. She had the misfortune to be an Iconodule just at the time when Leo III became convinced that the use of icons was the cause of all the ills of the Empire. When Leo ordered the destruction of the great icon of Christ above the gate to the Great Palace, Theodosia led a gang of women to the Augusteum and shook the ladder on which a soldier was standing to reach the icon, and knocked him off. The fall killed him. Revenge was immediate, Theodosia was dragged off to the Forum Bovis and executed, thus becoming the first Iconodule martyr.”